A Brief Postmortem of Brain Drain in Pakistan

Youth of every nation is considered to be the asset for the country’s future who plays a vital role for development of any entity, unit or organization either public or private sector. In Pakistan, the situation is contradictory. A large number of intellectuals are leaving country frequently to get higher education and to secure a bright career abroad. It is one of the main alarming elements which require grave attention by Government immediately as situation has reached to a worst stage.  

The literacy rate of Pakistan is at 55% where numbers of students are getting Graduation and Masters Degree every year but due to several reasons many of them choose to go abroad. According to Overseas Pakistanis Foundation (OPF) figures, more than 40,000 Pakistani Doctors, Engineers and IT Professionals have settled abroad during last 30 years, although this is the official figure where many gets illegal entries to several countries.

Following are the few of major reasons causing Brain Drain in Pakistan.

• Inadequate job opportunities are making students frustrated. After being relieved from colleges/universities, the top most priority of students is to get a job so they could make a healthy contribution alongwith their parents but lack of opportunities make them disappointed consequently they prefer to work abroad.
• Non existence of merit culture has annoyed candidates at a large scale in Pakistan. No body trusts the current hiring system at Government/Private organizational level. It has a clear perception in masses that only the person having ‘Sifarish’ or reference can get a job.
• If somebody manages to get job, he/she faces many problem at work, most important off which is respect to work. Male employees complaint about excess to work where females raise concerns about gender biasedness.
• Short salaries as comparative to a particular job market put a negative impression on employees. In many cases, employees work in a position which requires to be paid well but on other hand people working in some other organization on same position enjoy satisfactory packages. Take the example of Doctors who get starting salary of just Rs. 18,000 approximately in the Government sector Hospitals but get higher in Private. This seems absurd when a student spends 5 years in the university, work very hard and get such a short package. Moreover none provisioning of medical, education, insurance and other basic facilities keeps employees demoralized.
• Impoverished infrastructure at work environment is seen almost everywhere in Pakistan. It has been noticed that people from a particular profession report to a Boss who belongs to some other. For an instance an IT professional report to a non IT Boss who has rare knowledge of technological terms e.g. Programming, Networking, Software Engineering or so. Employees find it hard to communicate and convince the boss regarding a particular case/problem, resulting in increase of frustration.
• Currently, trend to offer jobs on contract basis is on a surge. Once an employee is hired, he works in a fear as to his tenure will be expired at a particular date, thus feels insecure. Till that time his efforts are put on a mission to get a permanent career in some other organization.
• Our universities do not offer variety of courses, very selective and conventional list of courses offered by which a student has to pick. In many developed countries Degrees of mediocre Pakistani universities are either not accepted or are given preference whatsoever. Students prefer to study in countries like USA, England, Australia etc. where standard of education is at its best and their degrees are accepted worldwide, given ample preference and adequate salaries after hiring.
• Law & order situation in the country has put a very negative impact on business/foreign investment, which is putting adverse impacts to create new opportunities. Furthermore youth feel physically insecure and thus try to secure their careers abroad.

However to cope with the situation and to retain the intellectuals of country, following measures could help retain the talent;

• Government should create sufficient job opportunities for Graduates and Masters Degree holders by maintaining merit and a transparent procedure for hiring.
• Give sufficient budget to colleges/universities, reduce fees and improve the quality of education by hiring highly educated faculty members. Moreover spend a certain amount of budget for Higher Education Commission by which number of students could be sent abroad for higher study, and make sure they come back and serve the country after completing their education.
• Build state of the art arts and science laboratories, libraries and provide best of research facilities to science, engineering and IT students.
• Persuade and Invite all young PhD graduates from abroad, offer them positions in several mediocre universities according to their capacity with high salaries. A good teacher and a proper guidance is what all the students require, whichever institution they study in adds to the value later.
• Make sure all Public and Private sector organizations hire Pakistani engineers/specialists /consultants either local or working abroad for several projects instead of paying heavy amounts in salaries to foreigners which also result in loss of foreign reserves.
• Encourage foreign investors by taking several steps including improve in Law and Order situation. This will create more opportunities for newly relieved students.

Nations who acknowledged their intellectuals developed instantly. If Pakistan manages to retain our talent than progress is at our door step. Our students are breaking world records in education sector, recent example was seen when two students took 'A' Grade in 23 out of 24 subjects. Utilize our youth effectively than see where they take us, off course on peak of mountains of success.

By: Muhammad Adeel
adeel_sher@yahoo.com